Nasi went to a shelf by the bed and lifted a small mirror. She came over and held it up for her to see. Kosika studied her reflection.

  She was still an in-between girl, with in-between skin and in-between hair. But only one of her eyes was its usual in-between shade. The other was now black from edge to edge and lid to lid, like someone had poured ink into the socket. Kosika recoiled at the sight, scrubbing furiously as if she could clear the stain. But when she pulled her hand away, it was still there.

  “Eyes like that are rare,” said Nasi. “It’s a mark of magic. The last king had an eye like yours, and he woke up the world. Now you have one, and they think maybe it’s a sign. Maybe the magic will keep coming back, so long as an Antari stays on the throne. Maybe you can keep the city from plunging into war. Maybe they will look at you and see a good omen, a beacon of change. Or maybe,” she went on, “they will see a helpless child standing in their way, and cut your throat.”

  Kosika swallowed, but she couldn’t take her eyes from the mirror. She reached out and touched the glass, even as her heart thrilled in her chest.

  “What do I have to do?”

  “Nothing,” said Nasi. “Just stay. And stay alive.” She handed the mirror off to Kosika. “And try not to destroy any more of the city.”

  With that, she went toward the door, and knocked three times.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Letting them know you’re awake.”

  A heavy bolt slid free, and the door swung open onto a hallway, and a silver guard—a Vir. He looked past Nasi to her, and then sank to one knee, head bowed.

  “Kosika,” he said softly, and it took her a moment to realize he was not addressing her by name, but title.

  Little queen.

  III

  NOW

  The sun was high by the time Kosika reached the second station on the pier.

  Her fingers were sticky with sugar, and stained red. She’d eaten the bun on the walk from the castle to the plaza at the river’s edge, dusting the last traces of pastry from her palms along with flecks of drying blood.

  The crowd along the Sijlt was twice as large as that in front of the castle, and twice as boisterous, the mood made bright by the second tithe’s reward: a steaming cup of cider wine. The drums played on, counting out the city’s pulse, but here they were joined by other music. Nearby a woman sat on a rooftop, singing a song about the Someday King, and merchants sold food to go with the gifted drink, and Kosika’s arrival was heralded with cheers, and bows, the crowd parting to allow their queen and her guard, then folding closed again, as if she were a fire, and they hoped to feel her heat.

  Nasi and two of the Vir had yet to make their second tithe, so Kosika stopped to watch and wait. Lark caught her gaze, lifted a cup of wine, and winked, and she fought the urge to roll her eyes, even as her cheeks warmed. She wasn’t sure why his smile did that to her. She didn’t want his attention, not like that. And yet, when he turned that smile on a pretty girl in the crowd, she felt the warmth curdle.

  “I don’t blame you,” observed Nasi, wrapping the strip of white cloth around her hand. “He is pleasing to look at.”

  “Then you may have him,” said Kosika, too fast.

  “How kind,” said Nasi, “but I prefer your company.”

  Kosika ducked her head to hide her smile.

  The truth was, she loved them both, always had, but these days, Kosika loved Nasi and Lark with a need that frightened her, a hunger that climbed into her bones and burned there, and made her want to hold them close, to bind them to her. She thought of the Danes, binding Holland, and wondered if it had been an act of hate, or necessity—a need to keep him close, to feel them linked. Not that she would ever follow in their footsteps.

  Then the way was clear, and it was time.

  Kosika approached the pier, and the second altar.

  This Holland Vosijk stood waiting for her, no longer on his knees, but standing upright on a plinth over the water. A polished black crown circled his stone temples, and his two-toned gaze looked straight ahead, at his city, at her. A carved cloak lifted behind him, caught in a permanent breeze, and his boots vanished into the basin at his feet, his reflection rippling in red.

  “First, you were a servant,” Kosika said under her breath. “Then, you were a king.”

  Beyond, and below, the river glowed. The Sijlt had thawed with Holland’s reign, but it still ran pale. Mist clung to the surface, and the water itself emitted a soft silvery light, not unlike frost, that Kosika finally understood was not a sign of sickness, but strength. A place where magic gathered. Where it flowed. It was the first place to suffer, and the first to heal.

  Her eyes dropped to the waiting basin.

  So much sacrifice. And yet, in truth, it was only a few drops. A few drops from each and every soul in London. We all must bleed a little … she thought, drawing the blade across her skin a second time.

  A second time Kosika touched the side of the basin, and said the ritual words, and a second time the walls of the altar shattered, and the blood cascaded down into the river below, a moment of deep blooming red before it dissolved in the tide. People stood downstream, and watched as the ribbons vanished in the current, but her gaze lingered on the statue, the bottom hem of its cloak dripping blood, just like hers.

  Kosika turned back to the plaza, where Nasi stood waiting with a cup of cider wine and—

  She felt the blade sing toward her.

  The whistle of metal, the glint of steel, but Kosika was already drawing the air tight on instinct, the way someone else might suck in a breath, wrapping it into a shield the moment before the dagger struck, and clattered, useless, at her feet.

  Shouts went up, a strangled cry, and then Nasi was there beside her, her own weapons ready. The Vir drew in like a wall, and then the guards were on the would-be killer, forcing him out of the crowd and onto his knees. He fought, until a gauntlet collided with his face, a sword slicing toward his throat.

  “Wait.”

  The excitement had bled out of the plaza, taking the sounds of celebration with it. Only the distant drums beat on, unaware of the incident, so Kosika’s voice rang out through the square.

  The guards stilled. The man fought like a mouse in the grip of a snake.

  Kosika looked down at the weapon on the pier.

  It was not the first time someone had tried to kill her. And on a Saint’s Day—but she supposed that was the point. There were those who wanted her dead because she was queen, and those who wanted her dead because she was Antari. Because they believed the power of Holland’s life lay only in his sacrifice.

  And sure enough, the man was ranting on under his breath.

  “Och vil nach rest,” he said, again and again, as soft and swiftly as a prayer.

  In death, you set us free.

  Kosika stepped over the blade, and crossed the square to the four soldiers, and the man on his knees, his face swelling from the gauntlet blow. And as she neared, she saw that his hands were unwrapped. Unmarked.

  “You have not tithed,” she said.

  The man looked up at her with venom in his eyes. “The world does not want our blood,” he hissed. “Only yours.”

  The queen considered her fingers, stained with her offering. “Is that so?” She brought her hand to his shoulder. “Shall we ask the world what it wants from you?”

  He tried to recoil from her touch, but the guards held him fast. Kosika closed her eyes and waited for the words. That was the way of the Antari spells. They came as she needed them, whispered through her head, and shaped themselves on her lips.

  So she waited, and the guards waited, and the citizens and soldiers in the square all waited, and the moment drew long and still, and in that stillness, a new word rose to meet her, and she gave it voice.

  “As Orense,” she said, and the spell’s meaning echoed through her as she spoke it.

  Open.

  A strange spell, and not the one she would have chosen, but it had been chosen for her, and as she said it, the man’s eyes went wide and his mouth yawned, and his skin split, as if held together by a hundred invisible seams that all gave way at once, and his blood poured forth—not the drops he would have given in the tithe, but all of it, every crimson ounce, came spilling out into the pier.

  He did not scream.

  No one did.

  It was London, after all. They had seen horrors.

  And it was horrible.

  But it was also right. It was the world’s answer to the man’s claim that only she should bleed.

  The guards let go, and what was left of the man’s body fell like wet rocks into the spreading pool that had been his life. But Kosika would not waste it. She reached out, and the blood rose and flowed in a ribbon across the square and over the river’s edge, before vanishing into the Sijlt with the rest of the sacrifice.

  And with that, the second tithe was done.

  * * *

  SIX YEARS AGO

  Kosika held a hand over Nasi’s face, to make sure she was breathing.

  She could see the steady rise and fall of the other girl’s chest, but it still amazed her, the way Nasi slept—as if there was no danger in it.

  Kosika didn’t know how to sleep like that.

  Her mother used to sleep like a star, her limbs flung out to every side, so if Kosika wanted to join her in the narrow bed, she had to fold herself into the empty spaces, and even then, she only skimmed the surface of sleep. Her skin had always been awake, her ears pricked for trouble. Now and then, she’d sink deep enough to dream, but even those crumbled as soon as her mother stirred.

  Now Kosika sat up, eight years old and wide awake in the massive bed, marveling at Nasi’s steady breath, how lost she was to the world. She gave a testing bounce, but the other girl didn’t so much as murmur.

  She huffed. The least Nasi could do was keep her company. She considered shaking the girl awake, forcing her to play a game of kol-kot, or tell her a story, but Nasi would probably punish her by telling a scary one, full of shadows and teeth, and then she’d have the nerve to fall right back asleep.

  Instead, Kosika slipped down from the bed.

  Her nightgown whispered around her ankles, silver and white. Her feet were cold, and she eyed a pair of slippered boots, almost left them—it was easier to sneak around without the shuffle of shoes—before remembering she didn’t have to be quiet anymore. This was her castle. This was her home. She could be as loud as she liked.

  Kosika stepped into the shoes and padded to the window.

  Beyond, the moon was a white hangnail in the sky, and the river had taken on a pearly glow. At midday, you might not notice, but when the sun went down, it gave off a silvery shine, like starlight.

  The first year, the whole castle had seemed to hold its breath, the soldiers waiting, hands on weapons, for the inevitable fight. But there hadn’t been any fighting. Kosika was presented to the city, and the city accepted her like a gift. Their Little Queen. No one had come forward to challenge her claim. At least, not that she knew of. If there had been stealthy attempts, they hadn’t gotten very far.

  People accepted her, she knew, because London was changing faster now, magic rushing back. Nasi could conjure water, and did so every chance she got (Kosika hoped magic wasn’t the kind of thing that could run out, or Nasi wouldn’t have any left by the time she turned twelve). And it wasn’t just the children.

  Some of the grown-ups were getting magic, too.

  Every day, there were more of them, adults now able to conjure fire or wind, water or earth. And they all said it was connected, to the old king, and to her. And it had to be, didn’t it? After all, she was the one who’d found him in the Silver Wood, even if nobody knew it. She was the one with the black eye, the mark of magic.

  Now people came to the castle every day, wanting to see her, to touch her, to be blessed. They came, and sometimes the Vir let them through, and sometimes they didn’t. One day, even her mother came, suddenly full of want. Her mother, who’d tried to sell her. She came, and for a moment, Kosika thought it was because she missed her daughter, wanted her back. But she didn’t. She only wanted to be paid. The Vir kept her away after that. Sometimes, when she was falling asleep, she could still hear the coins on their kitchen table going clink clink clink.

  Kosika turned away from the window, surprised by how dark the room seemed now with the thin light of the moon at her back. She curled her fingers, and fire ignited in her hand.

  It was so easy—as easy as wanting, and she knew how to want. Other people struggled to conjure a flame. She struggled only to contain its size. The fire bloomed, hot and bright, swallowing her fingers, and she held her breath and focused until it shrank back to candlelight, hovering just above her palm. Nasi slept on as she shuffled past the bed, heading for the doors. Most of the floor stones were smooth but a few were patterned, and she liked to play a game, hopping between the marked ones until she reached the other side.

  She pressed her ear to the carved surface of the door, listened, and heard nothing, save for the hum of the wood against her palm, inviting her to take it, to bend it, to make it grow. She imagined it coming apart beneath her fingers, braiding itself into tendrils, into limbs, a tree, but she must have imagined it too hard, because the door let out a splintering crack. Kosika jerked her hands away and squeezed her eyes shut and imagined the door as a door and nothing more. And when she opened her eyes again, it was still there.

  She pushed it open.

  A pair of soldiers stood on the landing beyond, dressed in armor so dark it seemed to swallow the light, making them blend right into the walls. She knew they were there, even if they didn’t move, knew they weren’t going to lurch forward and grab her. She knew—but she still walked a little faster until she was safely past them, and on the stairs.

  Almost a year she’d lived in the castle, and Kosika still hadn’t learned the whole shape of the place. She knew there were four towers, and that she was in one. She knew her stairs led down and down and down, three landings, and three floors. She knew that on every floor below, there was a four-sided hall that went all the way around, touching the towers and studded with narrow windows that looked out onto the city. She knew the thirteen Vir stayed on the two floors beneath her, and that the bottom floor held the castle proper, with the throne room and half a dozen other halls, and also some of the guards. She knew there was another floor underground, for the kitchens and the castle servants.

  She knew, but in the dark sometimes, she still got turned around, so she kept to the halls that bordered each floor, counted to make sure she touched all four sides and ended up back at her own tower. Tonight, she miscounted. Or perhaps she didn’t miscount. Perhaps she heard the whisper, or saw the light ghosting on the stairwell wall, and simply followed it up the tower steps.

  When she reached the top, she saw a Vir.

  In her mind, the thirteen Vir were like the little kol-kot statues Nasi had used, all of them more or less the same. Some were tall and others short, some dark-skinned and others pale, but in their silver armor and their half-cloaks, the ring pin at their shoulders, they blurred together in her mind, these chosen few, the members of the old king’s original guard.

  This Vir stood before a kind of altar, a shrine placed before a door like the one that led to her own rooms. At first, she thought there was a second Vir in front of him, but then she realized it was a statue.

  A statue of the old king.

  His head was bowed, just like when she found him in the Silver Wood. But here, he was on his feet, a crown resting on his stone temples.

  Kosika crept closer and saw that the altar in front of the statue had been draped in a silver cloak, just like the ones the Vir all wore, the same silver ring pin lying at its center. Candles stood around the ring, and she watched as the Vir lit them one by one, then knelt.

  She thought of the soldiers in the Silver Wood. The way one of them fell to their knees before the old king’s body. This Vir didn’t fall, but he sank slowly down, and whispered, so softly she couldn’t hear the words, only the breathy sound they made.

  When he spoke again, it was to her.

  “Os, Kosika,” he said, and she jumped, fingers tensing around the little light in her palm, which went out. The Vir rose and looked at her. His hair was thick and dark, taking over his face like a thicket, from the heavy eyebrows that looked like soot smudged across his brow to the beard that shadowed his jaw.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Making devotions.”

  Kosika drifted forward, and studied the statue of the old king. From this angle, she could see the shine of two polished gems set into the stone face, one green, the other black. They stood together for several moments, and the Vir didn’t talk. Kosika felt she shouldn’t either, but questions had always made her tongue itch.

  “Who was he?”

  “His name,” said the Vir, “was Holland Vosijk.”

  “Holland Vosijk,” she echoed. When she said it, she tasted the sugar cube melting on her tongue. Felt grass tickling her fingers. She didn’t know much about the man she’d found in the Silver Wood, only that he had gone to sleep, and something in her had woken up.

  “Tell me about him,” she said, and even though she was queen, she added, “please.”

  The Vir smiled, his gaze still on the statue.

  “Have you heard the story of the Someday King?”

  * * *

  “Once there was magic,” she told herself. “And it was everywhere…”

  Kosika’s fingers trailed along the castle wall as she spoke, reciting the story to the stones, and the grass, and the sky. She could feel the rocks singing beneath her fingers, feel the ground humming under her bare feet, which she knew wasn’t fitting for a queen, but she didn’t care.

  She was alone—but of course, she was not alone. She was never alone. A handful of Vir studied her from a balcony. The soldiers watched from atop the wall. Nasi glanced down, now and then, from the nearby tree where she was perched, reading a book on strategy and war.